Vehicles, such as planes, trucks, cars, tanks and boats, may be equipped with a data storage device. Often this data storage device may contain sensitive information that the operator of the vehicle or the owner of the information may wish to prevent from being disseminated. Examples of such information are proprietary algorithms, communication keys, surveillance data, mission data, or any other type of data that is considered to be sensitive or proprietary information.
When the operator of a vehicle that has sensitive information stored onboard is required to abandon the vehicle, the sensitive information stored on that vehicle is in danger of being retrieved by an unfriendly party. This is undesirable as the unfriendly party may obtain the information, such as methods of communication and encryption, surveillance data, and operational data. Such information may allow the unfriendly parties to predict future actions of the operator of the vehicle or the entity that controls the vehicle.
In military operations, the risk of unfriendly parties obtaining or attempting to obtain sensitive information in the event that the operator of the vehicle must abandon that vehicle is very high.
Similarly, in corporate operations, companies may send exploring teams to search for mineral or energy resources. These companies are often strongly competitive and much of their business is derived from protecting proprietary information. Exploratory operations, therefore, are also interested in preventing competitors from obtaining access to proprietary information located onboard field vehicles.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved system and method of protecting sensitive information from retrieval by unfriendly parties.